A revisionist
western directed by the Spaniard Mateo Gil ("Nobody Knows Anybody") and written by Miguel Barros, that wants us to believe
that American outlaw Butch Cassidy wasn't killed in a
Bolivian army ambush in 1908 but instead lived another
twenty years as a peaceful South American rancher and
took the name of James Blackthorn (Sam Shepard). The
romantic elegy to the outlaw is unconvincing, plodding
and too full of sentimentality, but the pic has good
scenic photography and a grand performance by Shepard.

The pic begins in
1927, and the grizzled elderly rancher Blackthorn says
his goodbyes to his younger Indian girlfriend
housekeeper Yana (Magaly Solier), withdraws his $6,000 life
savings from the bank and rides across the plains by
horse to return home to America after living in exile
in Bolivia for over twenty years. On his journey home,
hunted robber Spanish mining engineer Eduardo Apocada (Eduardo Noriega)bushwhacks Blackthorn andcauseshis horse, holding his life
savings in his saddle bags, to run away. To get Blackthorn to spare
his life, the whiny Eduardo tells of robbing the
richest mine owner in S.A. of $50,000 and hiding it at
the mine he worked at. Blackthorn agrees to take the
Spaniard across the desert to the mine for a
fifty-fifty split, even though a large army posse is
after the wanted man.

While on the run,
there are flashbacks to the younger days of Butch
Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (featuring the young Cassidy
and young Sundance played by Nicolak Coster-Waldau and Padraic Delaney, respectively), and their mutual
girlfriend Etta (Dominique McElligott). Pinkerton agent Mackinley (Stephen Rea) also shows up in the
flashbacks and again in the present as a former Pinkerton man, who is now a
deadbeat drunk.

Though disappointing
because of all the dull spots and how lackluster it
turned out, the modest western is nevertheless
watchable because of the 67-year-old Shepard's rugged
performance and as a reminder to western fans of when
that genre dominated the big screen.